Participation and Causality: Levy-Bruhl Revisited

A recurring debate within discussions of religion, science, and magic has to do with the existence of distinct modes of thought or orientations to the world. The thinker who initiated this debate, Lucien Levy-Bruhl, distinguished two such orientations, one characterized as participatory and the other as causal. The present essay attempts to clarify what a participatory orientation might involve, making use of the social-psychological category of a schema. It argues that while the attitude to which Levy-Bruhl refers is to be distinguished from an explicit body of doctrine, it does have a cognitive dimension and can embody causal claims. It follows that if such a distinction is to be made, it is not helpfully characterized as a contrast between participation and causality. A better distinction might be that between a mythical and an experimental attitude to the world. Un debat recurrent dans les discussions sur les rapports entre la religion, la science et la magie, porte sur l'existence de modes distincts de penser ou d'<< orientation >> au monde. Le penseur qui a initie ce debat, Lucien Levy-Bruhl, distingue deux orientations, l'une nommee << participative >> et l'autre << causale >>. Le present article tente de clarifier ce qu'implique une orientation participative, en utilisant la categorie socio-psychologique de << schema >>. Il fait valoir que bien que l'attitude a laquelle Levy-Bruhl fait reference doit etre distinguee d'un corpus de doctrines explicites, elle comporte une dimension cognitive et peut incarner des affirmations causales. Il s'ensuit que si une telle distinction doit etre faite, le contraste entre la participation et la causalite n'est pas fecond. Une approche plus riche, serait de distinguer une attitude mythique et une attitude experimentale au monde.